In the finishing of fine still wines and sparkling wines, it is necessary to precipitate from the wine the sediments which arise as a result of the fermentation process. This is especially true of sparkling wines which undergo a secondary fermentation step after bottling.
The finely divided sediments precipitate at a slow rate, and exhibit a self-affinity which is only slightly greater than the affinity of the sediments for the inner surface of the bottle. As a result, it has become customary to place the bottles of wine in racks which hold the bottles in an oblique, downwardly slanting disposition, so that the sediments will precipitate towards the opening of the bottle. Furthermore, it has become customary to rotate the bottles periodically through a small angle about their axes, so that the agglomerating precipitants will sweep the inside surface of the bottle as they slowly descend toward the neck of the bottle. The rotating and tipping of the bottled wine is usually accomplished by hand; thus the procedure is extremely labor intensive and time-consuming. Moreover, the rotation and tipping which are applied to each bottle may vary, causing variations from bottle to bottle in the quality of the contents thereof. When the sediments are fully precipitated and deposited at the neck of the bottle, they may be removed by processes which form no part of the present invention.